From what Iíve been reading in reviews of single vraptorís, is that their as fast as a SSD already.From Oversized Rooster and orcaphot results here, raid0 gets you another 60/70ish % improvement in speed.I think SSD has still got a big climb up for desktop systems, given the raptorís SSD like speed, and 300GB capacity.Technically I donít like the reliability of flash for this kind of application, and I suspectmanufactures are skewing the numbers by including their anticipated load leveling in the final mtbf. Thatís likely fine for sub-notebooks and the like though.

The Raptor series isn't targeted at the average user, they are just like any other top of the line product. They are enthusiast oriented and people who pay the price premium are willing to for the performance.

Hey, I'll tell you guys this. SSDs can have their wonderful sub-1ms latencies. But when you're paying over $500 (AFTER rebate) for a 128GB SSD, which means about $3.90 per GB, that's damn sour.

At $300, the VelociRaptor costs just $1 per GB which is in TIMES cheaper. I have personally toyed with the argument of slimming down my OS drive in order to perhaps fit into a 32GB or 64GB SSD.

Basically, I absolutely CANNOT fit into a 32GB SSD. It is possible to fit within a 64GB SSD, but that will mean that I install my games on a normal HD. And of course, a formatted 64GB SSD won't actually give me 64GB of space. So that leaves me with the 128GB minimum option which costs $500 in the BEST CASE scenario.

Mind you...currently I'm using 122GB on my VelociRaptor, so I wouldn't even fit into that.

In two words, while the prices are high for SSDs, there will remain a market for the Raptors. Even when prices go down, the Raptors will still be attractive because of their 5 year warranty and higher reliability in general. So far, transfer rates are competitive, too.

Outside of games and data what could you possibly have on your OS drive to make it over 64G?

Progs and stuff. I keep my digital pictures on another HD. Those amount to 13GB. My music collection is on another HD as well which amounts to 175GB. My movies are also on another HD at 500GB. My CD images are also on another HD at 52GB. My download directory is also on another HD at 15GB.

On my VelociRaptor, I have 11 directories.

The first is some sort of Windows Update temp folder which is like 100KB.

The second is the ATI folder with VGA drivers at 0.09GB.

The third is an Intel folder at 400KB.

The fourth is an MSOCache folder at 0.51GB.

Then there's an empty PerfLogs folder.

The sixth is the Program Files folder at 0.82GB.

The seventh is the Program Files (x86) folder at 38GB.

The eighth is a ProgramData folder at 0.53GB.

There ninth is an empt Scenario folder.

The tenth is the Users folder (only 1 user) at 2.47GB.

And last is the Windows folder at 19.4GB.

The total says 102GB used so if the math doesn't add up, there are also hidden and swap files.

Those numbers do not just not add up, they really do not add up. With about 65G of visible files plus 10G for a hibernation file and swap file (what does Vista default the swap file to with 4G RAM?) you still have 25% missing space. It might be time to try out some of those data visulaisation tools to figure out what is happening. Maybe you have some kind of weird cluster size that is eating space.

__________________He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, that dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all.
- James Graham

Those numbers do not just not add up, they really do not add up. With about 65G of visible files plus 10G for a hibernation file and swap file (what does Vista default the swap file to with 4G RAM?) you still have 25% missing space. It might be time to try out some of those data visulaisation tools to figure out what is happening. Maybe you have some kind of weird cluster size that is eating space.

I checked and Windows dedicated 4.29GB as a swap file. By the way, I'd like to point out that now Windows says I'm only using 98GB of the drive.

Just 2 hours ago it said 102GB and I have not installed or uninstalled any software or moved any files at all.

I run disk cleanup almost daily, so that's not it either.

If I do "Select All" on all of the folders on C, then it shows 61.8GB total size right now. If I disable "Hide protected system files, etc" and the swap and other ones show up, then my total goes to 66.1GB.

I have no idea where these other 30GB are.

UPDATE: I found out what this crap was! It is system restore points. Apparently I had like 30 backups (Windows makes a restore point each time it installs a patch, etc). You gotta open Disk Cleanup and then go under More Options.

You can limit the space windows uses for restores.
Control Panel->Performance and Maintainance-> System Restore, there should be an option link.
Then when it makes a new restore point it automatically deletes older ones, and you still
have a few of the latest ones. Just case you need them to totally wipe out some trial crapware you installed.

You can also use the "disk cleanup" function to clean up restore points.

I normally set a reasonable system restore limit on the HDD, and then when I've been running well for a week or so without any newly installed software/drivers I'll use disk cleanup to remove all but the most recent restore point.